


Day 7: Free Day

by Anonymous



Series: Prowl Week [7]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Insecticons, Courting Rituals, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23859676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It took them two cycles to reach the mountains, and two deci-cycles to lose first the trail, then each other. If Jazz had the nerve to be anything less than utterly apologetic when Prowl found his way off this overgrown hill, he was getting a punch in the face.
Relationships: Bonecrusher/Hook/Long Haul/Mixmaster/Prowl/Scavenger (Transformers)
Series: Prowl Week [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709728
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37
Collections: Maccadam's Back Room First Run





	Day 7: Free Day

::Jazz, are you receiving me?:: he commed again, trudging along the bank. If he followed the river he should reach civilisation eventually, right? It must flow down out of the mountains, at the very least, and then he could find someone to help mount a rescue mission. “Let’s go hiking.” he muttered mockingly to himself, ducking his helm as the river passed into a tunnel far too even to be anything but mech-made. “Camp in the mountains and see some stars.” he kicked a hunk of cloudy fluorite and sent it skittering along the riverbank, which was slowly but surely evening out into a smooth path. “Next time he can just stick it up his tailpipe.”

“You’re sticking what up whose tailpipe?”

Prowl whirled around, fists up, and desperately wished he hadn’t let Jazz convince him to leave his blaster back in Praxus. “Who’s there?” he demanded, optics flicking from side to side, scanning the smaller offshoot tunnels he’d already passed.

“That’s my question.” the same voice echoed at him, and Prowl’s engine audibly missed a stroke at the sight of the mech who emerged from one of the offshoot tunnels. They were twice his size, easily, with purple-green plating that matched the sizable fluorite deposits in this part of the mountains and kibble unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“I’m... Prowl.” he said slowly, lowering his fists but remaining in a ready stance. Jazz had regaled him with reasonably probable stories of the mech-eaters of the manganese mountains both nights on the drive out here, and even if this stranger _wasn’t_ a cannibal Prowl didn’t trust them.

“You’re not from around here.” the stranger said simply, a strange chirring noise underlaying his glyphs. “Get lost?” he moved closer, and Prowl backed up along the bank, fists raising defensively again. This wasn’t a mech. Its legs bent the wrong way, its armour resembled no vehicle or machine Prowl had ever seen or heard of, and its face was... _off_.

“My friend is waiting downriver.” he lied, meeting the stranger’s optics. He had to look up to manage it, and realized with a start that it had gotten closer.

“Liar.” the not-mech grinned, armour flaps on either side of its mouth fluttering in a decidedly unsettling manner. “You’re _lost_.”

**Frag.**

“We haven’t had a visitor in so long.” it crooned, catching Prowl’s chin and forcing it up. “And never one so _pretty_.”

“Pretty?” Prowl blinked, cycling his audials for good measure.

“Verrrry pretty.” the stranger pulled him closer, until his bumper pressed up against its strange chestplate. It smelled strangely good, like rare minerals and those fancy polishes Windblade used. “We treat pretty guests right.” it assured him, arms wrapping around the small of his back. “Good fuel, warm berth. Let us?”

“How many of you live here?” Prowl asked, bending back slightly to maintain optic contact.

“S-” the stranger flinched, visor dimming. “Five. We are five, now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Prowl said, the platitude automatic.

“Stay?” the stranger asked, and Prowl briefly weighed his options. Accept and he could fuel up, replenish his dwindling supplies, sneak out in the middle of the night and keep heading downhill. Refuse, and his tacnet helpfully churned out exactly how bad his odds were in a fight. It was hardly a choice at all, really.

\---

“Constructicons?” Prowl’s doorwings canted out in disbelief. “I thought your kind were called Insecticons.”

“Some of us, yes.” Hook, the mech who seemed to be in charge, shrugged. “Our Queen loved building though, as do we, so. Constructicons.”

“Huh.” Prowl settled his doorwings back to careful neutrality, accepting the fresh plate of varied energon goodies pushed in front of him by the smallest Constructicon. Smallest, but far from small, Scavenger was easily half again his height and double his mass. He and Mixmaster, who seemed to have an integrated energon storage tank, had been piling his plate with fuel since Bonecrusher dragged him down from what was apparently their foyer into the hive itself. It was surprisingly delicious, both the raw fuel and the confections made from it, and in theory topping off had sounded good but after a deca-cycle of quarter rations and a few cycles of foraged scraps his tank was Not Happy. He might have to take a nap once he escaped from the table, let it settle properly before making his escape.

Still, he sampled one of the new little treats Scavenger had put on his plate, a curious little lump of what seemed like sand but glowed from within. Its texture was strange, but the taste unparalleled. His tank pressed against the underside of his abdominal plating, and he lowered a hand to press on it. “The fuel is delicious, but it’s getting late.”

“And you were walking all day.” Long Haul nodded. “Hook, should I show him to his room?”

“Please do.” Hook nodded. “Recharge well, Prowl. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thank you.” Prowl nodded, keeping a hand over his fuel tank as he stood. Something to remember for when he returned to civilisation, small portions until his tank got used to fueling regularly again.

Long Haul wrapped an arm around his back, just under his doorwings, and Prowl tensed as thick, blunt fingers traced the side seam of his chestplate. “Sorry ‘bout Mix and Scavvy.” the Insecticon said after a hecto-cycle of walking in silence. “Don’t think they realize not everyone has our appetites.”

“It’s fine.” Prowl lied, already setting a silent alarm to wake him shortly before midnight. “I hadn’t fueled properly in a while.”

“Most of our visitors haven’t.” Long Haul nodded sagely. “Scrapper picked a good spot for our hive, hard to find us unless you’re already lost.”

“How many, ah, _visitors_ have you had?” Prowl asked, opening a little note file to record the answer.

“Don’t remember.” Long Haul shrugged. “None, since Scrapper died.”

So no victims in the last half vorn. Which meant there was more than one hive in the mountains, since Jazz had mentioned far more recent disappearances. Still, any information he could bring to the authorities was good. “Sounds like it gets pretty lonely out here.”

“Hard to be lonely in the Hive.” Long Haul smiled. Prowl closed out the note file. GPS coordinates and the hive's numbers would have to suffice.

\---

Getting out of the hive, unfortunately, was much more difficult than getting _in_. The corridors were immaculately sculpted, but they twisted and turned, and the intersections lacked any sort of signage or even drones to ask for directions. Morning, as declared by his chronometer, found him quite thoroughly lost.

“There you are!” Scavenger exclaimed, and Prowl had never thought he would be _happy_ to see an Insecticon but if only the mechs who built this place could navigate it, then the company was more than welcome. Not to mention this place was downright creepy alone, not unlike being in a school after hours. “I came to get you for breakfast, and you were gone.”

“I uh, got lost.” he admitted, and Scavenger laughed, his mandibles clicking.

“Yeah, so do all our visitors.” he took Prowl by the hand and turned, leading him back the way he’d come. “Mix made zinc-cakes, you’ll love them.”

Prowl opened his mouth to say he was still full from last night, but his tank readout _had_ fallen below ⅔ while he was trying to find the exit. Another top-up couldn’t hurt, right? He hadn’t been able to find where they stored their fuel, so all he’d have to make it back to civilisation was the contents of his tank and whatever he could forage as he went. “Lead the way.” he said instead, and Scavenger did, happily chattering about his hivemates’ various abilities. Prowl took notes. Mixmaster was a downright genius with chemistry, skilled at making confections and combustibles and everything in between. Hook was a medic, apparently no slouch at surgery, and failing to save their late Queen was a sore spot. Bonecrusher and Long Haul were the guards who’d never been beaten in a fight save by each other, Scrapper had been an architectural engineer...

“And what about you?” Prowl asked as they turned down yet another hall. “What are you good at??”

“Oh, nothing much.” Scavenger looked away, and for the first time Prowl felt something in one of the Insecticons’ fields. Bashfulness? Interesting. “I'm uh, sorta good at finding mineral deposits we need. It’s nothing fancy.” his helm swiveled, and he dragged Prowl through a doorway into the dining room from last night. “Oh hey we're here!”

A transparent attempt at evading talking about himself further, but one that Prowl couldn’t deny was effective. The fluffy discs of silvery-pink fuel on the table, despite being primarily zinc, smelled delicious. The seat Scavenger pulled out for him had five stacked on the plate in front of it, topped with an already melting pile of whipped gallium and a little puddle of the gold-tinted energon they called nectar. The fuel only held his attention for a moment, however, before his optics slid to the shoddily wrapped bundle next to his plate.

“What’s this?” he asked, and Hook beamed.

“A gift!” he declared, Bonecrusher leaning over the table to nudge it closer to him. Prowl weighed his options briefly, and decided to take the plunge. The flimsy, colourful foil fell away with a few precise tugs, revealing a pair of golden triangles with a chain between them, tiny glimmering rubies studded in the solid metal and dangling from the fine links.

“It’s just your size, isn’t it?” Long Haul asked, lifting it from the pile of foil and settling the triangles atop the points of his chevron. The sensation was odd, but not uncomfortable.

“Beautiful.” Hook nodded, radiating satisfaction. “Or, well, even more beautiful.” he smiled, and Prowl quickly turned his attention to his fuel.

“Hurry up and eat.” Mixmaster scolded, swatting Hook and waving a knife at the others. “Your zinc-cakes are gonna get cold!”

Lukewarm or no, they were without a doubt the tastiest zinc anything he’d ever had.

\---

Three days into his stay at the Constructicons’ hive, Prowl was forced to admit that there was no way in the pit he was getting out without the permission. He still hadn’t located their energon storage, though with how Mixmaster kept insisting on giving him Constructicon-sized portions at each meal he was starting to think he might not _need_ to bring rations. There was also the matter of the gifts. Scavenger claimed they were just laying around, but nobody with a functioning processor would wear this sort of finery out into the mountains, and they fit too perfectly to be secondhand. Which raised the question he should’ve been asking from the moment Bonecrusher didn’t just eat him when they first met.

“Why?” he asked, stopping in the hall and letting Hook’s momentum carry him a conversational distance before he stopped. .

“Why what?” Hook turned around to face him, helm cocked slightly to the side.

“Why am I still here?” he asked, crossing his arms. The fluorite-studded bracers which had shown up next to his morning fuel caught the light distractingly, and he uncrossed his arms to hold them at his sides instead. “Why have you been making all this pointless jewellery for me to wear when I can’t _leave_?”

“You want to leave?” Hook’s plating flared up, optics going wide. “But- why?”

“I have a life, you know.” Prowl crossed his arms again, doorwings high and taut behind him. “My friend must be worried sick about me. It’s been almost two deca-cyces now since we last saw each other.”

“But- why would you leave?” Hook asked again, seeming genuinely distraught. “We’ve given you our best fuel, the nicest quarters, beautiful gifts-”

“Why would I _stay_?” Prowl rebutted, and Hook made a subglyphic sound of distress.

“We need you.” Hook pleaded, closing the distance between them with two quick strides and catching Prowl’s hands. “Without our Queen to lead us, the Hive is dying. _We_ are dying.”

“And you want me to be your new Queen?” Prowl pulled back, his spark twinging at the shattered look on Hook’s face. “I’m not an insecticon, Hook. I have a life, a job.”

“You could have a new life.” Hook dropped to one knee, reaching out to trap his hands. “New home.” his field flared to life, pressing against Prowl in a battery of _urgency desperation honesty_. “The Hive needs a queen to lead us. You are brilliant, and beautiful. Your hatchlings will be strong.”

“Hatchlings?” Prowl frowned.

“Drones.” he explained, field still roiling against Prowl’s. “Workers, to make the Hive strong.”

“And they would come... from me.” Prowl’s tacnet hummed in the back of his processor, a vague plan taking shape. An attack on the hive would have casualties, the number impossible to predict without knowing what tactics the local enforcers would use but certainly higher than zero. If he assumed control of the hive though, reigned in their appetite for living metal, then there would be no need for law enforcement to get involved. Not quite the job Hook seemed to be implying, but if it protected people...

“Please.” Hook practically vibrated, and Prowl picked up the sound of approaching pedesteps. The rest of the insecticons coming to convince him to stay.

“Before I decide, I’ll need to know just how you plan to get these hatchlings out of me.” he said firmly, and the flip of Hook’s field from panicked to elated was so fast it set his own field reeling.

“Of course!” Hook surged forwards, lifting him right off the ground in an embrace, nuzzling the side of his face. “Mix can explain the chemical part, and I the physical.”

“Or-” Prowl pushed Hook’s face away, fluttering his doorwings at the Constructicons approaching him from behind. “You could give me a hands-on demonstration?”

Five powerful engines revved, and Prowl grinned as they swept him off towards their own chambers. Let them think he was so shallow as to abandon his forged function for decadent fuel and shiny trinkets and a handful of fragbuddies. By the time they knew any different, he would be in control of the Hive, and they wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to any not-logged-in readers, but due to an ex who refuses to leave me alone I have had to disable anon comments. Kudos are still open though, and if you want to scream (or would like me to write a fic for you) come check me out on Pillowfort! No account required to get my discord, and I'm always happy to chat. [[Link](https://www.pillowfort.social/GemmaRose)]


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